Feminist Friday: Elizabeth Warren makes your week

TRAP laws and probes are still all the Republican rage. As always Rachel Maddow and the good folks over at the MaddowBlog are on the case.

On Wednesday night, Rachel covered TRAP (targeted regulation of abortion providers) laws designed to make a legal right illegal in certain states.

Thursday night, The Rachel Maddow Show covered Indiana Republicans’ attempt to make women who want abortions to get not one but two medically unnecessary ultrasounds.

Is there any context in which requiring a woman to get a medically unnecessary ultrasound – especially after an abortion – is anything other than punitive rape? It seems pretty transparent to me: Think you have control your own reproductive organs? We’ll prove to you that you don’t.

The TRAP laws and rapey ultrasound laws make me think that we need to start funding “shopping excursion” bus tours that start in red states and happen to end up near clinics in blue states.

Hey, and some actual (potential) good ladybits news! RepresentativeCarolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) introduced the Access to Birth Control Act – legislation that would stop the current nonsense of pharmacists deciding that birth control, a legal product, is too immoral to dispense and thus refusing to do so. If you’ve ever lived in a rural area, you know that “just go to another pharmacy” isn’t necessarily an easy proposition. But even if you live in a densely pharmacied city and have infinite lunch hours, screw those pharmacists for deciding that their religious beliefs trump a woman’s health care decisions.

When bigots complained and threatened to cancel subscriptions over coverage of a heartwarming lesbian wedding, Jim Cegielski, the owner of Mississippi’s Laurel Leader-Call, wrote a kickass editorial defending the newspaper’s right to report and telling hypocrites where they could put their antigay hysteria. (When you follow that link, flip to page 5 and enjoy the paper-turning sound as you do so.) It’s not so much a defense of The Gay as it is a defense of being reasonable, but it’s still very much worth including. And it shows how you can be a conservative and not have to be a total creepwad.

Bob Beckel of Fox’s The Five doesn’t think rape happens on college campuses. To their credit, his co-hosts were aghast. He’s supposed to be a “liberal” commentator, on there, by the way. (Via Buzzfeed)

Later in the week, Beckel said that he did, in fact understand that date rape is still rape (though he doesn’t seem to in that clip), but doesn’t seem to have acknowledged the huge problem of sexual assault on college campuses.

Danica Patrick became the first woman to win the Daytona 500 Pole on Sunday. Congratulations, Danica! Now maybe think about becoming a woman who stops associating with the vile sexists at that ripoff domain hosting company.

Oh, my goodness gracious. Watching Senator Elizabeth Warren kick some bank examiner butt at her first – HER FIRST – Senate Banking Committee hearing is the feel-good movie of the winter. I still can’t decide on my favorite part. What’s yours?

Have a great weekend. Get out there and ask a few pointed questions of your own.